On December 21, Reconnaissance Energy Africa (Recon Africa) announced that it had begun exploratory drilling for oil and gas in the Namibian portion of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA).…
From the Gulf of Guinea to the mouth of the Senegal River, a sprawling shroud of seaweed is choking coastal ecosystems and the fishing communities that depend on them. Offshore,…
KAMPALA, Uganda — Two sugarcane companies have begun clearing thousands of hectares in disputed sections of Uganda's Bugoma Forest. The National Forestry Authority (NFA) is challenging land titles granted to…
The rainforest of Lopé National Park in central Gabon is one of the last safe havens for the endangered forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis). But in a new study in Science,…
On Oct. 22, four gunmen shot and killed anti-mining activist Fikile Ntshangase in her home in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province. The murder points to escalating pressure on communities across South…
Poaching for tusks, horns or other body parts is a well-recognized threat to Africa's wildlife, but the impact of hunting for bushmeat may pose a greater threat. Conservationists in Southern…
DURBAN, South Africa — South Africa is home to around 1,300 of the world’s roughly 7,100 remaining cheetahs. It’s also the only country in the world with significant cheetah population…
CAPE TOWN — An innovation challenge launched this month hopes to inspire new ideas for businesses that will provide people in Africa with sustainable incomes while protecting ecosystems. The African…
IFRANE NATIONAL PARK, Morocco — As he guides his flock of sheep home through stands of oak and endangered Atlas cedar, Umimun Hammou feels something is wrong. Rounding a bend…
Nearly 400 elephants have died in Botswana's Okavango Delta since March, in what wildlife experts say is one of the largest elephant mortality events ever recorded. Conservationists have criticized the…
CAPE TOWN — South Africa’s great white shark population has been the subject of international scrutiny since 2017, when cage-diving operators reported a sudden, sharp decline in sightings around False…
Scientists, agricultural officers and farmers are struggling to protect crops from a fresh wave of desert locusts. Earlier swarms overran the Horn of Africa region in December 2019, and the…
A newly identified subspecies of diademed monkey in Tanzania faces an uncertain future due to growing threats to forest habitat in the region, primatologists have warned. The Manyara monkey (Cercopithecus…
Scraping sounds fill the nights at Mapungubwe, a national park at the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers, where the borders of Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa meet. Families…
As she peered into the collection chamber of her harp trap, Iroro Tanshi instinctively knew she had caught something peculiar. It was small, with large ears, and a button-like patch…
The abrupt collapse of tourism due to the coronavirus pandemic has again highlighted the inadequacy of resources for conservation in Africa. Carbon credits have been advanced as one possible source…
Twelve rangers and five other people were killed in Virunga National Park in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday. It was the latest deadly incident…
Wildlife conservation and animal welfare groups say the COVID-19 pandemic ought to spell the end for one of South Africa’s most controversial businesses: the captive breeding of lions. Industry representatives…
A team of Ugandan herpetologists has just returned from near their country's border with Kenya. They were searching for a glimpse of a critically endangered frog that hasn't been recorded…
Law enforcement officials around the world have seized more than 200 tonnes of pangolin scales since 2016, more than half of it linked to Nigeria, a new report has found.…
APOI, Nigeria — It’s sunset in the small Niger Delta village of Apoi. The town crier's bell rings out over tilted electricity poles and small bungalows. “The epiene people are…
The World Rainforest Movement (WRM) has accused Singapore-based agribusiness company Olam of making meaningless “zero deforestation” pledges about a major oil palm development in Gabon and neglecting the rights of…
Around 1,000 vultures have been found dead in Guinea-Bissau in the last two weeks, believed to have been poisoned. The birds, almost all critically endangered hooded vultures (Necrosyrtes monachus) were…
Fish populations in coral reefs off Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique are being harvested at unsustainable rates, new research has found. In the study published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress…
DURBAN, South Africa — Lee White was appointed minister of water and forests, the sea and the environment, in charge of sustainable development objectives and the land use planning for…
Kenyan conservationists are challenging plans to host a music festival at Hell's Gate National Park, 100 km outside the capital, Nairobi, on Feb. 14. They say it will negatively impact…
ACCRA — “Beginning now, the full-scale exploitation of Ghanaian bauxite resources will commence,” Ghanaian President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said last June. “I am satisfied by what I have been…
MASAKA, Uganda — “The harvest season was good when the forests were not yet cut down, but now they don’t have any food,” says John Mulindwa, 58, sitting behind a…
CAPE TOWN — In and around Cape Town, expanding urban communities press right up against the protected area of Table Mountain National Park. This gives residents and tourists alike easy…
DURBAN, South Africa — Another mass vulture poisoning incident has ended the year on a sour note for Wildlife ACT rangers in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal. Soon after…